Provincial employment effects of coal mine retirement in China's carbon-neutral transition

China's just transition toward carbon neutrality requires carefully designed coal mine retirement strategies that balance climate objectives with social equity and regional development disparities. In this study, we propose a comprehensive analytical framework combining the RUC-MESSAGEix-China (RMC) integrated assessment model with facility-level coal mine data to evaluate three distinct retirement strategies across China's 19 major coal-producing provinces. The cost-optimal strategy prioritizes economic efficiency, the employment-oriented strategy emphasizes social equity, and the balanced strategy seeks an optimal solution between competing objectives. The results show that while all strategies achieve similar retirement targets by 2060, they follow dramatically different pathways. The balanced strategy emerges as optimal for most provinces like Anhui, preserving cumulatively 1.78 million additional job-years compared to cost-optimal strategies. By 2060, the cost-optimal strategy concentrates all remaining operations in efficient regions like Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, while the employment-oriented strategy preserves a broader industrial footprint across provinces like Henan, Shanxi, and Liaoning. Furthermore, provincial analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity: high-production, high-GDP provinces like Shanxi benefit from gradual transitions, while resource-constrained regions like Guizhou require targeted support. The carbon capture and storage scenario demonstrates an improved performance on employment, facilitating an extended employment transition period and enhanced job retention. These findings highlight the necessity of differentiated, location-specific just transition policies rather than uniform national approaches, ensuring no region is left behind during China's decarbonization. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd.